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RANDY SPORTAK, QMI Agency

Nov 2, 2011

, Last Updated: 10:37 PM ET

CALGARY - It’s a loss which has the chance to become a slap-in-the-face shot-of-reality and spurs the Calgary Flames to get their act together in a hurry.

Or it’s a loss which proves the Flames, with their 4-5-1 record heading into Thursday’s NHL clash with the Detroit Red Wings, are truly the bottom-feeder squad so many critics called them prior to the season.

Obviously, the Flames won’t buy the latter theory and are banking on Tuesday’s 5-1 defeat at the hands of the Canucks as being a wake-up call.

“We eked out a couple of wins (prior over the Colorado Avalanche and the St. Louis Blues), but let’s be realistic — they weren’t great games,” Brendan Morrison candidly said in the aftermath of Tuesday’s whitewash. “(Goalie Miikka Kiprusoff) stood on his head, and we got some great efforts from individual guys, but our team is not good enough to only have great individual efforts.

“We need everybody going. It’s the same old story from last year — we need every single guy playing well or we’re not going to win games. We’re not going to have one line carry our team or four or five guys. We need 18 guys plus the goalie. That’s what it is.”

The strange part of the Flames’ early season struggles isn’t so much the record.

It’s the performances through the first few weeks.

Not only have they failed to build any momentum — back-to-back wins should never create an outpouring of confidence, especially when it’s the longest spree of the year and happened just once — but they’ve been inconsistent within every game so far this season.

Sure, this team can’t be called a Stanley Cup contender, but the Flames were supposed to be a veteran-laden squad — they have the second oldest roster in the whole NHL — with all kinds of players who knew how to perform night-in and night-out.

To top it off, this is a crew which came into the season self-assured it not only had an iron-fisted grasp on the system implemented by head coach Brent Sutter, but believed in it because of the second-half success in 2010-11.

To top it off, they had a burning desire to prove they were as good as that 27-11-9 record last year indicated and were fuelled to be a playoff team again.

None of those things have happened.

Instead, the Flames have all too often been guilty of looking disinterested for parts of games and failed to consistently be at their best from start to finish.

The latest included even more damning signs. Morrison said he and his teammates panicked when they fell behind by a pair of goals to the Canucks, and Sutter — who has been looking for urgency and intensity from his players all season — noted the lack of push-back from his squad after the first period.

A veteran team which believes it’s good enough to compete for a playoff spot, and more, doesn’t react that way.

However, we’re seeing the same team which stumbled and bumbled for a couple of months to the point its strong push went for naught.

Sutter often talks about playing smart hockey, but his team looked like it needed a bunch of dunce-caps atop the helmets.

“If you watch the tape, it’s just decision-making with the puck,” Morrison said. “A lot of times, we’ll have possession of the puck and there won’t even be a man on you, but we’ll move it to a guy with (an opponent) coming at him. It’s decision-making.”

And, you bet the Flames know where this road leads.

“We’ve got to get something going on the road. We’re back below .500 again, and I know it’s early, but you look at the conference standings and we’re (near) 15th in the west. That’s not a good sign,” Morrison said. “We all know what happens when you dig yourself a hole in the first half and have seen that movie before. We have to find a way to rectify this.

“We’ve got to get it done right away. We’re going into Detroit, which is one of the toughest buildings in the league. If we’re not sharp in Detroit, the same thing will happen to us (Thursday night) that happened (Tuesday night).”